| written by Magnulus on Feb 25, 2008 23:22 |
 | |  | | ![]() Okay, let it be known that this is not a new Future Noctis Ideas thread. What I mean by that is that it's brainstorming for features that you actually think are likely to be possible in the community project, not dreams of what the future may some day hold.
So what are your thoughts? What kind of features would you want to see in the future? No categorical restrictions, but try to keep it realistic. I'll do my best to keep this post up to date with a list of all the ideas for future reference along with the basics of what further discussion says about these ideas...
I have some myself, but I'll let you get on with it.
PS: The features of Noctis IV are seen as a given, of course. Expand and add.
- SPACE
- PLANET SURFACE
- NETWORK
- GRAPHICS
- MISC. (to be sorted)
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└> last changed by Magnulus on March 04, 2008 at 16:51
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| written by Serpens on Feb 25, 2008 23:34 |
 | |  | | ![]() It's probably rather banal, but I'll post one of mine. It's concerning the realism of terrain on felysian worlds - of course if the surface will be divided into sectors of different type.
There would be "edge" sectors, situated where two types of terrain meet. It would be a kind of mixture of both terrains - for example, there's "plains" to the east and desert to the west, so the sector could be a mixture of grass and desert; the farther towards west, the more sand, the farther towards east, the more grass.
In order to prevent two "edge" sectors appearing next to each other (which would always be the case without any restrictions), "priorities" could be set. I'm not entirely sure about this, but those priorities would probably depend on how much terrain of a certain type is in the vicinity or on the whole planet. If the planet was a desert world, or just the part concerned was mostly desert, then the desert sector would become "edge". This way, there would be no situation when, for example, a single sector of "plains" surrounded by desert from all sides becomes an "edge" sector".
I'm not sure if this could be implementable when there are more than two types of terrain next to each other, though. | |  | |  |
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   | |  | | ![]() *New star types or variation, with the distinct possibility of stars that are truly an oddity.
*New planet types and variation. Not just little varation, but each planet should be able to host unique and grand features of it's own kind, with much more power from the random seed engine. Cave networks are one of the possibilities, even though this is probably under something very hard to do correctly.
*Many more types of stellar phenomena such as asteroid belts, comets, nebulae...
*As in NV, the ability to freely fly and control the Stardrifer through space. Just thought it should be mentioned.
*Additionally, the SD could be piloted into planetary atmospheres and landed instead of the cupola, if the player wishes.
That's all I got for now. | |  | |  |
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 | | | | ![]()  | Lightning4 said: | | *Additionally, the SD could be piloted into planetary atmospheres and landed instead of the cupola, if the player wishes. |
I would like to see this applied to the upper atmospheres of Gas giants, allowing you to muck about in the cloudy depths. Although I am no programmer, clouds/fog may not be too difficult, although I am unsure if storms could make streaks of lightning and such. | | | | |
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| | | | ![]() If one of you programmer types manages to get caves working, the logical extension of that would be to have ways to explore inside cubes. | | | | |
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 | |  | | ![]() How about, for stars, instead of just making specific categories (S01, S11, etc), we make a set of variables that can be changed, like heat and size and color. And then, based on the results of these variables, the engine files it into the proper category and displays it to the screen. So instead of randomly picking a class, it's picking specifics about the star and THEN saying what category it should belong to. =] This would truly make every star unique, while maintaining an easy user interface for finding certain stars. And maybe even some variables could be dependent on others; for instance, the more lithium it outputs, the grayer it appears.
The same idea could be applied to planets. | |  | |  |
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| written by Yayo on Feb 26, 2008 03:40 |
 | |  | | ![]() I was thinking at something on the same line.
It's the same concept of the object oriented programming: making classes of the game objects.
Decide what elements define a star (size, color...) and the range of values for every one of these elements.
You'll get the "star" class, that you will use to make every star object.
anyway for things like stars you'll probably end up having some subclasses, to be able to decide which range of values & properties define a white dwarf and which one define a supergiant (or whatever it is) instead
y. | |  | |  |
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| written by Sirpaper on Feb 26, 2008 03:51 |
 | |  | | ![]() | Raptorjedi said: | | If one of you programmer types manages to get caves working, the logical extension of that would be to have ways to explore inside cubes. |
I honestly have no real programming experience, so I have no idea if this could even work, but for caves could it be possible for each planet to have two "surfaces" or layers or whatever? Like, a lower layer for the inside of the planet and then a higher layer for the planet surface. And then the upper planet layer could have random holes in it that you could get to the lower layer through. No idea if that makes sense or is even doable. Just an idea I suppose. | |  | |  |
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| sun + black hole = fwoosh! |
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 | | | | ![]() Or, a solution like Sauerbraten uses. | | | | |
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| written by Magnulus on Feb 26, 2008 08:59 |
| | | | ![]() I definitely think it's worth looking into the way Sauerbraten lets its users build things. The block-based mechanism seems highly user friendly and also very computer-generation-friendly. Imagine if you could have it create the insides of the cubes by simply making the cubes and then burrowing into them, creating stories and hallways and rooms and stuff, based on a set of rules for that particular building type. Shouldn't be THAT hard... I think.
I'm a strong believer in allowing the game to sometimes go extremely beyond the norm, but only in exceptionally rare cases. Let's say an animal's characteristic has a slider from 0-100. If it is set to 0 or 100, the animal will have a very anomalous feature. It's not very likely that it will go to those numbers, so it makes the animal quite rare. You could even have it go 0-1000, making the chances even smaller. The smaller the chances of extreme anomalies, the higher the chances that people's fascination with the game will hold itself for years and years.
Personally, the reason I finally stopped playing NIV was that I just didn't find anything new any more, and when I found the same stuff again, it always looked the same.
Also, for my own reference:
** FIRST-POST UPDATE CHECKPOINT ** | | | | |
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| written by Peek on Feb 26, 2008 12:06 |
| | | | I would add :
- seemless transition between space and surface
- real-time centralised "inbox"
- realtime tracking of drifters à la NoctisMapper
- Land vehicle ?
- short-range "radar" to elp detecting stuff (lifeforms, ruins)
- persistently add messages to the surface of a world ("I was here" sign)
In another area, the game should be backed up by a dynamic, automatic website reporting where drifters are, their latest discoveries, new names for stellar objects. Why not even creating news from scratch on the webstie such as "a huge volcano has just erupted on 123:8654:789, coordinates 12:85:63".
The global idea being to make the whole stuff more lively and dynamic ... we drifters are alone enough in this space quest  | | | | |
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| written by Magnulus on Feb 26, 2008 12:15 |
| | | | ![]() All right, sorry about the double-post, but I felt like updating with some old ideas that are not necessarily mine that have been discussed before...
Naming of objects, animals and land marks.
For example, you can point at an animal and snap a photo of it, which brings up a menu for naming that animal and then writing extra information. Maybe you would have to enter "naming mode" or something for it to work so it doesn't ask you for information every single time, though... This would have to be implemented in such a way as to make sure that similar or at least near-identical types of animals are recognised as such and are automatically given that name.
For landmarks, there are many possible things you could do: You could enter some kind of perimeter drawing mode where you kind of lasso-tool while walking around what you want to mark. Maybe the map could show on the screen and you would draw around the surface of the landmark, or maybe it could just zoom the camera out to over the landscape kind of like Google Earth so you can still make out heights and stuff. Lastly, it could create a mark where you stand, and you would choose a radius of effect for the mark you gave that could be represented in the world itself in some way as you set it. To offset the issue of all marks being circular in that way, you could maybe extend new radiuses from the edges of the radius you are already in, so you'd have a bunch of connected circles to make up any shape with... If that makes sense.
Here's one I just thought of:
Democratic naming of animals.
Let's say any new name given to an animal or a landmark is set as PENDING for a week. If no one else discovers the same animal within that week, the name is applied automatically to all animals of that type, but if someone else discovers the same animal and names it something else, a poll would be set up and either go automatically into Postline with pictures shot of the animal as a polled thread, or come up as a newsflash in people's game if they log on. Or both.
Underwater Exploration
One of the absolute earliest wishes people had, I think. I don't think there's that much more to say, other than that it would be fantastic to watch the fish swimming around and maybe catching some. 
Companion Camera
This is one of my own from back in 2003. For photographic opportunities and things like that, it would be awesome to have a Companion camera that would either follow you as you walk, like with any 3rd person game, or that you could control while your character sat down for a bit, so you could move it to great heights and distances to capture some truly awe-inspiring shots. Of course, you could choose to just use your eye-cam instead, like we're used to from NIV.
Integrated Photo Gallery in Database
Lots of people wanted this back in the day, and I think that it would be doubly possible five years later, with the advances in both hard drive space and internet speeds. Basically, just that when you snap photos on a planet, you could upload the images to an online database of information either automatically, once you get back to your ship or with a quick prompt of "do you want this to be uploaded?" when you snap your shots. This assumes the abolishment of manual in/ outboxes, of course.
just thought of another one:
Moving "demos" of planets
This could be incorporated into the Database and even use the companion camera to record motion across particularly impressive part of a planet so people could experience it as if they were there while browsing the database. Of course, the movement would be set, so there would still be a point in actually going there to see it yourself if you want to choose what to look at more closely.
Flocking/ Herding behavior in animals
This is a strong one for me. When a type of animal is created, I would love the animal to be defined with different types of AI, so that you would see some colonies like the ape colonies, and you would see herds of animals running across fields as well as lone predators or predators in packs stalking them. | | | | |
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 | written by Serpens on Feb 26, 2008 12:17 |
| | | | ![]() And don't forget about flashlight! As well as an interactive planetary system map.
Although this is just a minor idea, I were thinking about a cloud filter (like in NICE) which would work not only on Felysian worlds, but also on those with thick atmospheres. | | | | |
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| written by Magnulus on Feb 26, 2008 12:26 |
| | | | ![]() You mean like seeing through the clouds of the planet?
Well, I think that would probably look a little strange while you're looking at the planet itself, but there's nothing in the way of having the landing map filtering out the clouds, since it'd use some sort of geography reading thingy to read the planet, I would think.
On that note, I seem to remember people talking about a holographic map of the galaxy that would be shown in the drifter. How about the centre of the drifter showing holographic landing maps as well?
Peek:
Radar is a good idea. I likes it.
Also, the dynamic website is a good idea, and should be driven by the thing we see in the game itself. I don't necessarily think the game should create news when a volcano erupts in some random location no one's at, but I think maybe you were talking about PLAYERS writing news like that, which I'm all for. They could snap photos in "news mode" or something and then send it off with a headline and a story. That would actually be really cool, now I think of it. I can imagine a lot of people would want to zoom around the place like journalists looking for something spectacular to report.
That could also incorporate the democratic naming thing that I mentioned in that the news spot could come with a poll or something.
ALSO: ** UPDATE MARKER ** | | | | |
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| written by Serpens on Feb 26, 2008 12:50 |
| | | | ![]() Another of my small ideas: planets in multiple star systems with their own moons. In Noctis, planets orbiting secondary stars could never have satellites, since technically they were moons themselves. In our sequel, this could be changed (allowing for some really large systems).
Generally, the limit of celestial bodies in one system should be higher in my opinion. | | | | |
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